Keep This to Yourself (Button Poetry Contest Winner #8)

This book is gorgeous and haunting in its depictions of loss, family, and the opioid epidemic. The poem “Portraits of the Family as a Definition” is absolute genius, riffing off a dictionary definition to contain the pain and grief of a family struggling to understand addiction and overdose; the poem “The Mother Talks to Her Son about Her Heart” made me cry; and the poems called “reverse overdose” one through six, scattered throughout the collection, are nuggets of insight that really bring into focus McCadden's brother’s life and struggles. My favorite line is on page 18 in the poem “Losing”: “I keep / a jar of nails like a bouquet of denial.” Oh, this little but mighty book; this poet’s broken heart and fine, fine writing.